Flying Halfway Around the World

We checked in our bags with Qantas and hopped on our plane in Melbourne, our first leg, to Singapore. We were nicely surprised to find that we would not have to collect our bags and then check in again in Singapore, rather, our bags would be checked through right to London. What a nice start.

The flight was complete with complimentary champagne and strawberries for the married couple and even came with a side of crying baby right in front of us. The flight was long, but eased by anxiety medication provided by local vineyards and breweries. Thanks to the Hunter Valley wine region, again. 7.5 hours later, we landed in Singapore .

That was a cool airport. It was simply massive. There were orchid filled waterfall displays in the middle of the terminal hallways, every flavour of shop and food you could ask for, and we had no idea where we were going. We landed at 9 or 10 pm local time (though our bodies were at 12-1 am), so there were still a few things open. We particularly enjoyed the contrast between people in the airport: from guards armed with fully automatic weapons walking around to a man playing the grand piano at 11pm.

We fell asleep for a few hours in the terminal as our next flight was not due out until 3:30 am (5-6 am body time, hooray) - this stunk. We both felt off as we were exhausted and still had 15 hours of flying ahead of us. Qatar Airways checked us in and we boarded for the next 8 hour leg of our journey, which would take us to Doha, Qatar.

The flight was uneventful, minus the crying baby which somehow followed us from the last flight (I think it might of been a different angry child, but it still proved to be obnoxious).

We landed in the middle of the desert (Doha) at 7 am local time or so, still exhausted, but this time in a crappy little airport. Our plane parked in the middle of the tarmac and we walked down a set of stairs to get on a bus that took us into the terminal. The bus ride was almost 15 minutes - so we have no idea where our plane actually parked - but it was nowhere near all the other planes.

We only had another 2 hour layover until the last leg of our journey began. We spent it waiting in lines: security lines, lines for food, lines for security again to checkin, lines to wait for the bus to take us to our plane in East-Jebrew (Qatar), and lines to climb up the stairs to the plane again (in 110 degrees).

We finally got onboard this third and final leg of our journey - which was once again just over seven hours. This flight came with the angriest toddler we had yet to encounter. He or she cried like it was going out of style - most of the way.

The flight seemed to go on forever, but we finally made it - 1:30 pm local time in London. By Kristen’s count our bodies had been awake for weeks. Heathrow was once again a massive airport - but we diligently followed the signs for the baggage claim. Upon arriving at this lovely place, we waited for an hour and only got Kristen’s bag. Great.

After 30 hours of time in airplanes and airports, we only wanted to get to our accommodation and shower then sleep. This, of course, required clothing and toiletries, most of which were lost in ye ole reliable baggage system.

It took forever to file the baggage report - and after that we were referred up to the Qatar airways desk - which upon arriving, had no one working at the desk. Nearly four hours after arriving in London we finally gave up and headed towards the tube (the London Underground), where we we sure to “Mind the Gap.”

We arrived at the Meininger Youth Hostel in the Baden Powell House in Kensington (a part of London). (Apparently we were the only people who did not know that Baden-Powell founded boy scouts so our first morning at breakfast we dined with numerous little boy and girl scouts!)

Woo hoo - we were finally in London! Our first destination - bed.